In that case maybe you would like to speculate on why Rice told senators she regrets her public comments.

If Rice knew her comments about the video were true, or even that they might be true, she certainly would have no reason to regret them.

This is a tweet that quotes an unnamed sources characterizing Rice’s closed door testimony. Not a really credible source.

Some of what Rice said is now considered to be “wrong”, but the facts are still kind or murky. Most people say it was an attack by a terrorist group, and if the attack was from a terrorist group the video must have nothing to do with it. The groups responsible for the attack are certainly Islamic militias. They have the stated goal of protecting Libya from Western and non-Islamic influence. They certainly use “terrorist like tactics”. The Libyan government investigation has apparently been stopped by assassinations and assassination threats.

It is not clear to me this was a preplanned attack by these Islamic militants or whether it was basically a group of heavily armed Islamic militants that became angry at the US over the video and decided to attack the consulate. They may also have been planning the attack all alone, and changed the timing of the attack to take advantage of the video.

What Rice said was what the declassified talking points prepared by the intelligence community said. I don’t see how you can attack Susan Rice for saying what she was told to say.

Much of what Condoleezza Rice said publicly based on intelligence reports is now known to be incorrect. She was confirmed as Secretary of State anyway.

If Rice knew her comments about the video were true, or even that they might be true, she certainly would have no reason to regret them.

]]>By: mikecahttp://deanesmay.com/2012/11/27/we-didnt-intend-to-mislead/#comment-2601
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:13:35 +0000http://deanesmay.com/?p=26594#comment-2601The accounts of what happened are still contradictory. For example, this account says:

Mr. Sharif, a deputy interior minister, said Mr. Stevens and a second American diplomat, Sean Smith, were killed in the initial attack, which began as a disorganized but angry demonstration by civilians and militants outside the American Consulate on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The protest escalated into an assault by as many as 200 people, some armed with grenades, who set the building on fire.

The second wave, Mr. Sharif said, was hours later, when the consulate staff was being spirited to a safe house a mile away. At that point, a team of Libyan security officials was evacuating them in a convoy guarded by Marines and Libyan security officials who had been flown from Tripoli to retrieve them.

This account from a Libyan deputy interior minister shortly after the attack seems to indicate the attack started as a disorganized protest, and then escalated to an attack. There was a second wave attack several hours later that was more organized.

To Libyans who witnessed the assault and know the attackers, there is little doubt what occurred: a well-known group of local Islamist militants struck the United States Mission without any warning or protest, and they did it in retaliation for the video. That is what the fighters said at the time, speaking emotionally of their anger at the video without mentioning Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the terrorist strikes of 11 years earlier. And it is an explanation that tracks with their history as members of a local militant group determined to protect Libya from Western influence.

“It was the Ansar al-Shariah people,” said Mohamed Bishari, 20, a neighbor of the compound who watched the assault and described the brigade he saw leading the attack. “There was no protest or anything of that sort.”

This says there was no protest, but the video was what made the militants angry and motivated the attack.

I think anyone one that says they know exactly what happened and the video had nothing to do with it, doesn’t know what they are taking about. If you get your head out of the right wing entertainment bubble, you will find that the accounts are actually pretty muddled.

]]>By: Dishmanhttp://deanesmay.com/2012/11/27/we-didnt-intend-to-mislead/#comment-2600
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:33:07 +0000http://deanesmay.com/?p=26594#comment-2600The question is why is Susan Rice being attacked and called a liar by the conservative entertainment media rather than a serious investigation of how those talking points got written.

What we have right now is everyone available saying “We don’t know how that happened. Someone else did it.” Nobody was responsible for it.

As Sandi points out, It is the President who also repeated the video clip lie to the American people, congress, and the UN for weeks: knowing full well that it was not true.

In defending her remarks, Rice has said she was using de-classified talking points that did not reference the attack as a pre-meditated terror attack, and the spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence later said those talking points were prepared by the intelligence community, and not modified by other governmental agencies.

“When discussing the attacks on our facilities in Benghazi, I relied solely and squarely on the information provided to me by the intelligence community. I made clear that the information was preliminary,” Rice told reporters last Wednesday.

The problem with that is, that as UN Ambassador, Rice had the classified as well as the de-classified versions at her disposal. Claiming that she only had the de-classified information to go on is a bald faced lie.

However I could care less about Rice. It is the President who also repeated the video clip lie to the American people, congress, and the UN for weeks: knowing full well that it was not true.

Anyone “prepared to take Ms. Rice at her word” is either terribly biased and deluding themselves. Or they should also be in the market for checkerboard paint. sky-hooks, and cans of steam.

The question is why is Susan Rice being attacked and called a liar by the conservative entertainment media rather than a serious investigation of how those talking points got written.

Four good Americans died serving their country. I think it is time we stopped trying to exploit their sacrifice to score cheap political points. When you skip a closed door intelligence briefing on the Benghazi attack so you can call a press conference to complain about lack of information on Benghazi, I think it is time to move on to some new phony scandal.

]]>By: maggie - labrathttp://deanesmay.com/2012/11/27/we-didnt-intend-to-mislead/#comment-2597
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:23:27 +0000http://deanesmay.com/?p=26594#comment-2597I’ve known from day 1 that Stevens et al were killed by jihadists, and I’m a nobody lab tech from Maine. A few clicks on a few foreign web sites made that pretty clear. I was screaming at the US news that it had nothing to do with a video from Day 1. When Rice went on the Sunday talk shows and categorically stated it was a spontaneous reaction to a video and not a pre-planned attack, based on the “best evidence” to date – I was apoplectic. WHAT EVIDENCE??? There never was any evidence that a protest occurred. None , nada, nilch. It was then and is now a BOLD FACED LIE.
They lied, they double and tripled down on the lie and they continue to lie. In fact I think they deliberately played up the video with the INTENT to make the protests grow wider and louder to create even more cover. 70K to run apologies in Pakistan???? Hello???? All of them displaying MORE outrage over the “disgusting video” than the MURDER of our people???? I was literally nauseous watching it all play out.